SAWFISH: The world’s most endangered marine fish

FAST FACTS: PAKISTAN, INDIA, & SRI LANKA

Species:
  • The Northern Indian Ocean was once home to populations of four of the world’s five sawfish species: Narrow, Green, Dwarf and Largetooth

Status:
  • Sawfishes were once abundant in the region until around the 1980s, all sawfishes are now rare
  • There are no confirmed records of the Dwarf Sawfish in the region on over a century
     
    Pakistan
  • Sawfishes considered as ”quite common” until at least the mid-1980s 
  • Catch landings in 1982 of around 1800 tonnes (t) from the coastal states of Balochistan and Sindh, declining to 0.9 t in 2003, with no further official catches since
  • Once sufficiently common that rostra were used as fence posts in coastal Pakistani towns

     India
  • Historically, included in the “great potentialities [of exploitation] of fishing for elasmobranchs” (sharks and rays) (1973)
  • Large sawfish (3–6 m) were routinely reported in trawls off India’s eastern coast in 1966
  • Drastic decline in Maharashtra state (Raigad District) sawfish fishery from 1985-1990, with only occasional catches recently
  • Sawfishes heavily fished for oil and meat in the Mandapam area of Tamil Nadu state; drastic decline observed in landings after 1970
  • Sawfishes common in trawl bycatch in the Gulf of Mannar when fishing commenced in around 1970, but are rarely seen now and some fishers believe that they are locally extinct

     Sri Lanka
  • Noted as “relatively common” in the mid-1900s; by 1994 there were “no reports on the west coast for nearly 40 years”

     Bay of Bengal
  • Historically, reported to “abound”
  • Still caught by fishers in the Bay of Bengal, but numbers have declined significantly

Biology:
  • All sawfishes are marine species, but Largetooth and Dwarf sawfish also spend part of their lives in rivers; juvenile Largetooth spend 4-5 years in the freshwater reaches of tropical rivers before migrating to coastal and marine environment
  • Rivers are an important nursery areas for Largetooth Sawfish
  • Female Largetooth Sawfish return to sites previously used for reproduction to give birth
  • Green Sawfish can live for more than 50 years. In contrast, the Narrow Sawfish only lives to 9 years

Threats:
  • Elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) are increasingly and heavily exploited in the region, and declines in large elasmobranchs have been widely reported
  • There is intense human pressure on sawfish habitats in the region, particularly through unregulated and unmanaged fisheries, and habitat loss and degradation in critical sawfish habitats
  • Threats persist and will continue to impact any remanent populations where they may occur
  • India has traditionally been a regional hub in the shark fin trade, collecting fins from around the Western Indian Ocean (e.g. Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Indian subcontinent) and shipping these to the main markets of Singapore and Hong Kong
  • Sawfishes have been highly valued in the Indian region for their good quality flesh and high liver oil yields